HIGHLIGHTS

TMC said rise of BJP was responsible for communal violence in Bengal

BJP said TMC needs to be held accountable for law and order in the state

CPI(M) said the TMC-BJP were covertly colluding

The Trinamool Congress once again came under attack at the India Today Conclave East 2018, with both the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) accusing the Mamata Banerjee government of vitiating the communal harmony of the state.

The topic under discussion was the rising communal violence in West Bengal. While the TMC, CPI(M) and the BJP agreed that the situation in the state had worsened in the past few years, they all attributed the root of the problem to different causes.

Speaking for the government, Garga Chatterjee, assistant professor at the Indian Statistical Insitute, said that the only new variable in the political equation of West Bengal is the BJP and hence the saffron party should be blamed for the rise in violence. He said that the BJP has benefitted from clashes and has brought in people from outside the state to create communal disharmony in Bengal.

"If in 2013 an India Today conclave happened in Bengal such a discussion won't have taken place. Everybody was there in 2013 -- Trinamool Congress, Congress and the CPM. And, now there is a new kid on the block -- its the BJP. You should attribute the cause [of the rising violence] to this new kid," he said.

Jay Prakash Majumdar, the vice-president of the West Bengal BJP, accused the TMC government of using religion to polarise masses.

He accused the party of doublespeak -- alleging that TMC blames respective governments for the law and order situation in other states but lays the blame on outside influences when it comes to violence in West Bengal.

"If there is any communal violence in Maharashtra or in Uttar Pradesh the government and chief minister should have to reply. The same applies even in Bengal. The Trinamool Congress government should be held responsible for not being able to control violence in Bengal," said Majumdar.

"[In West Bengal, there is] communal disharmony created of the ruling party, by the ruling party, and for the ruling party," he exclaimed.

Providing an alternate narrative to the TMC-BJP tussle in West Bengal, president of the CPI(M)'s women's wing and a former MP Malini Bhattacharya said the Left has not disappeared from the state. She accused the TMC and BJP of "overt competition and covert collusion".

Bhattacharya maintained that Trinamool Congress can't shelve responsibility for the rise of "communal forces" like the RSS in West Bengal. She said that the Left had managed to keep the BJP on the back foot during the Left's 34-year rule of the state because its priority was religious harmony.

She admitted that the Left had suffered political losses in West Bengal and Tripura but blamed the setbacks on being unable to combat the politics of fear and favouritism followed by other parties.

Bhattacharya said, "Just because the Left is not in governance it does not mean it is irrelevant. You instil fear, mutual suspicion in people, they will feel they need protection. This kind of politics has had a detrimental effect on the Left. Ours is the politics of rights. In the Left rule, no communal violence was seen in West Bengal because we focussed on the politics of rights, not on politics of fear or favouritism."

When it came to the topic of the violence seen in the recently concluded panchayat polls in West Bengal, the charge on the TMC was that the government had scared their political opponents into not contesting on 55-70 per cent of the seats in several districts. While Garga Chatterjee tried to deflect the question by bringing up the situation in Tripura, Majumdar accused the government of committing a level of atrocity and tyranny that had never been seen in local elections before.